


Fight Monsters With Monsters

by Aryllia



Category: Slender Man Mythos, Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen, S1M1, runner five is slenderman, they're the audience surrogate so of course I imagined a cryptid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryllia/pseuds/Aryllia
Summary: It's hard to focus on exactly what is off about the new Runner Five. Must be the suit.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Fight Monsters With Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in October 2014, back when I was unemployed still trying to catch up with the zombies run episodes. Unfortunately I completely dropped out after I got a job so now I'm way out of the loop. I think I had some notes to continue this though the 5k training, but I can't find them so this is all there is. 
> 
> When I wrote this I thin I'd heard the Jolly Alpha episode at least five times and was getting a little sick of it, which is probably why I tried to omit dialogue from the episode as much as possible. That means that if you don't remember what went down in the episode, this might be a bit hard to follow.

Sam watched helplessly on the grainy screen as the helicopter went down, biting his lip and hoping against hope that the pilot and her passenger would make it. Between flashes of static he thought he could make out a dark shape jumping out of the helicopter, and he motioned Maxine to come over and look instead of hover by the door.

Looking over the scanners and camera footage he thought he could make out a figure that didn’t move like the typical zombie. Before he got far enough to congratulate the possible survivor and ask if the other (the pilot?) had made it, Maxine tugged at his sleeve and indicated the massive (and growing!) number of zombies. As he urged the figure to run, all feeds briefly flickered to static.

When Sam finally got visual on a running person it took all the professionalism he liked to think he had to ignore Maxine’s little victor dance. Although the massive number of zombies still threatening the runner was quite sobering. Just as Sam was ready to celebrate that at least the runner could hear their instructions, Maxine was back to her serious self and had a very dangerous idea – urgently enough to push Sam’s spinny chair to the side and take the mic. When she was done Sam turned it off.

“ _’Not let you in’_ , really? As if we weren’t even expecting them Maxine?”

“We also expected them to help and be an asset to Abel Sam.”

“So you send a runner who isn’t even familiar with the area into a poorly monitored death-trap, the same death-trap that very recently _killed Alice!?_ ”

Maxine jerked back from the desk as if he’d slapped her and straightened up, crossing her arms – no, more like she was hugging her sides, her knuckles tight, whitening and shaking a little.

“Sam I am sorry about what happened to Alice but she knew the risks. It was an important mission and it still is an important mission. I’m certain the file we’re looking for is there. Please trust me on this Sam.”

He wished he had a snappy comeback – any kind of comeback – but suppressed anger and nerves, mostly nerves if he were to be honest, had done a number on his tongue and thoughts so instead they just looked at each other as the static flickered over the screens in waves. Neither of them noticed how the runner seemed to jump further and further away from the zombies with every burst of static, as if teleporting.

Finally Sam sighed and then hastily turned back to the screen, more than a little embarrassed that he had taken his eyes from it for so long. The runner seemed fine though, and was already close to the hospital. He turned on the mic again.

_“Okay… I’m going to call you Runner 5…”_

Saying it hurt more than he thought it would, but the runner deserved to know who they – he? – was picking up the torch from and what had happened to the previous Runner 5. To Alice.

Then there was a seemingly endless stretch of time where he could do nothing but stare at the screen while the runner was inside the hospital and out of view. Well, he could talk to him but it would only be distracting for the runner if there was a corridor full of zombies or something in there and oh there’s the runner again.

_Curse the damn static, Janine will probably order us all to help troubleshoot the surveillance tech when she hears about this._

He quickly waved Maxine back to the desk when he noticed the small mountain of supplies the runner was carrying – including a pair of crutches and even a toolbox! Maxine was much more interested in another, smaller box precariously wedged between two medkits in the proximity of the runner’s armpit. Then the zombies showed up and

_Oh God no I’m going to lose another Runner 5 already-_

_“RUN!”_

Maxine hurried out to find Evan while Sam hunched over the comms desk, watching in astonishment as the runner took off and the zombies somehow kept pace with him. At one point a zombie cut in from an unexpected angle, coming a little too close for comfort, and the runner had to resort to throwing the toolbox at it.

With some of the load dropped, the runner should at least be fast enough to reach Abel, even if the zoms – who had even heard of running zoms this was absurd – were slowly gaining on him. And one of them wasn’t just slowly gaining on him. And then Sam recognized Alice.

Sam was infinitely grateful when Even briefly took over the instructions to the runner. Why Alice? How could she still run so fast when she was a zombie? _Why did it have to be Alice?_

No matter what he said, in the end he still couldn’t look away as Alice- as what was left of Alice went down in a faint spray of blood.

Once he had ordered the gates open he walked out of the shack. Feeling jittery and shaking with bottled up adrenaline. Their newest runner was already surrounded by a small cluster of people. Bras from the supply pile were sorted by size to be distributed to the female runners and Jack seemed to be bartering for the crutches on Eugene’s behalf. Sam elbowed his way to the runner – easily the tallest person in the settlement, and by a three feet margin it seemed – and tried to figure out what it was that felt so strange about the newcomer.

_Probably the suit. It feels like a lifetime since I last saw someone in a suit._

The runner gave him enthusiastic thumbs up.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have any excuses other than this: I like the idea of cryptids teaming up humans to fight a Bigger Bad, making friends, and then those friends gradually slip past the weirdness censor to realise that their good pal is a faceless abomination full of tentacles. 
> 
> And anyway, this would explain why Runner Five can run while carrying a literal truckload of supplies.


End file.
